REGION: Judge's numbers at center of DA dispute

Tranbarger began tracking convictions in criminal cases in 2006

A judge's statistics have become a lightning rod in the campaign
for the Riverside County district attorney's post.

Challenger Paul Zellerbach, in his bid to unseat District
Attorney Rod Pacheco, has repeatedly asserted that prosecutors lose
more than half the cases they bring to trial.

"That's remarkable ---- remarkably bad," said Zellerbach, in a
recent sit-down interview. "But Mr. Pacheco continues to bury his
head in the sand and say, 'Life is wonderful,' when it isn't."

Zellerbach bases his claim on statistics that Riverside County
Superior Court Judge Gary Tranbarger has been compiling since 2006.
Zellerbach contends the district attorney's conviction rate has
plummeted since the 1990s, when he was an aggressive prosecutor in
the office.

Pacheco, on the other hand, has repeatedly asserted his office's
conviction rate remains as robust, if not more so, as it was
previously and remains well above 90 percent. He cites statistics
compiled by the California Department of Justice to back up his
numbers.

The district attorney dismisses Tranbarger's numbers as
something "concocted" because the judge supports Zellerbach and
wants Pacheco voted out.

"He's made them up, literally," Pacheco said.

Zellerbach is a fellow judge on the Riverside bench who has
taken a leave of absence to run for the office of top prosecutor.
According to a campaign finance statement filed in March,
Tranbarger contributed $500 to Zellerbach's campaign.

"Judge Tranbarger is not fair to me. It's clear that he has a
political motive," Pacheco said. "He's the most biased judge in the
modern history of Riverside County."

Dispute taken to court

The numbers dispute recently spilled over into court.

In late March, a retired sheriff's deputy with close ties to
Pacheco sued to block Zellerbach from citing Tranbarger's
statistics in a candidate statement. But in April, a visiting judge
from San Diego ruled Zellerbach could mention the numbers because
the deputy's lawyer provided no evidence to prove they were
inaccurate.

Candidate statements appear in pamphlets mailed out to
registered voters in advance of elections to inform them about
candidates and measures on the ballot.

Part of the numbers confusion stems from what convictions the
candidates are referring to.

When Pacheco says his conviction rate is greater than 90
percent, he is referring to every criminal case his office files.
When Zellerbach says the rate is half that, he is talking about the
2 percent of criminal cases that go to trial.

"We're talking apples and oranges," Zellerbach said.

But when it comes to felony cases tried in the courtroom,
Zellerbach's figures for the district attorney's conviction rate
include only those cases in which every single charge lodged
against a defendant resulted in a conviction.

According to Tranbarger's statistics, he is correct in asserting
that the proportion of felony cases culminating in guilty verdicts
on all charges decided at trial was less than 45 percent in recent
years.

But other felony cases resulted in convictions, too ---- just
not on all charges.

When one adds "mixed" verdict cases, a different picture
emerges. The proportion of cases ending in at least one conviction
was 71 percent in 2008 and 76 percent last year, according to the
judge's records.